Pin It!

Subscribe To

Krista's Guide to Meal Planning

Farm girl turned city girl turned suburban mom. My degree is in Family and Consumer Science Education...that's "home ec" to the old school crowd. While I've spent a good deal of time as both a student and a teacher exploring the ins and outs of food and nutrition, baking, and meal planning, I credit countless hours in the kitchen with my mom and 10 years of 4-H with providing the foundation for my knowledge of all things food and my love of cooking.

I'm all about the crock pot dinner!

You can't go wrong with Paula Deen!

Today's Post Featured Product!

Here's What I'm Cooking With....

The Anolon Professional Hard Anodized Nonstick 12-Piece Cookware Set. After 2 years of putting this set to the test EVERY DAY, it is holding up beautifully!
If you're in the market for new cookware...this is a great value! Right now it's marked down from $803.00 to $179.99. WOW!

Committed to Your Resolutions? Here's some Food For Thought:

They've got a Family Biggest Loser Cookbook too...with "budget-friendly meals your whole family will love".
No fuss healthy recipes!
The food DOES matter!
Why do it alone? A life-style change for your whole family!
This one is tried and true in my kitchen. Great ideas!

My Two Favorite at Home Workouts

Each workout is just 10 minutes and you can choose any combination: abs, legs, buns, arms, or all 4. As a busy mom, this has been my go-to workout for the past 5 years!
Love her or hate her, Jillian knows her stuff when it comes to exercise. This does just what it claims... attacks the "trouble zones". Ouch! But it works.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

By some great stroke of luck, I ended up with 7-8 pounds of Michigan asparagus this year. I brought home the first 4 pounds after a May visit with my family in Indiana. Our little family enjoyed it in salads and stir-fries, grilled, and steamed. Then my parents came to visit a couple of weekends ago and my mom brought her portion of asparagus that she "just hadn't had time to use". She left it with me, and I decided to freeze it for later (we've eaten a lot of asparagus lately!)

Asparagus freezes well and thaws out just fine for a side dish or use in recipes. Nothing is as good as fresh of course, but when the price of asparagus shoots (Ha ha. Shoots. Get it?) up after the growing season is over, having asparagus in your freezer is a nice, inexpensive asset.

I've been freezing asparagus since my 4-H days when I exhibited it as a Food Preservation project at our county fair. It really is a simple vegetable to preserve. And with a small amount like this 3-4 pounds, it really takes very little time to take it from "fresh to freezer".

Blanching vegetables destroys enzymes, changes the texture and sets the color. For extended storage, like freezing, destroying the enzymes improves the keeping quality of the vegetables. The same enzyme that causes fruits and vegetables to ripen also cause them to rot. Blanching before freezing is not necessary, but blanched vegetables will look and taste fresher for a longer period of time.

After you put the water on to boil, wash the asparagus to get all of the sand and soil off.

Snap off the "woody" bottoms if there are any, then sort the asparagus into piles by stalk size: small, medium, and large. The reason for sorting by size is that the blanching time varies based on the size of the stalk.

I forgot to take a picture of the blanching step, but here's the break down: You just drop the stalks into the boiling water for the required amount of time.

Then drop it into an ice water bath to quickly cool and stop the cooking process.

Once the asparagus has cooled, drain it again.

Then pack the asparagus into labelled (it's always easier to label a bag before filling) freezer bags. I like to fill each bag half-full (because I'm an optimist!) while holding it upright, then lay it down flat, spread out the asparagus, and squeeze out any air before sealing. This creates a product that freezes quickly, hence preventing the formation of large ice crystals.

Freeze the bags flat until solid, then stack them however you please to save space in your freezer.

Note: You could also slice the asparagus into pieces before blanching. Sliced asparagus make for a speedy addition for stir-fry, casseroles and quiches, or soup.

Whether you are growing your own or you find a great deal at the Farmers' Market this season, be sure to put some up for later when the prices "shoot" up!

7 comments:

This may be a silly question but I have never frozen a veggie before so I will ask... now that I followed your instructions & got my asparagus in the freezer, when I want to use it .. do I just nuke it for a minute to heat it up or boil again?? Or are you just suppose to eat a room temp & not cool it anymore because it will make it mushy cuz its already been cooked??

On Da Road, this asparagus has only been blanched. You COULD eat it just as is, it would be semi-cooked. Or you could stir-fry it, steam it, or cook it otherwise -- it would only take a minute or two. There's an old saying, "less time than it takes to cook asparagus" -- because asparagus cooks so fast.

My own fave way to eat asparagus is to saute in a cast-iron skillet on high heat, in a tiny amount of hot olive oil. Deicious!

I just tried freezing asparagus this weekend following your directions. Then I tasted my first batch to see how it was and it wasn't good. It was too limp compared to my fresh asparagus. Any idea where I might have went wrong? I am so sad because I did several batches.

I got some of the best quality frozen asparagus from Trader Joe's and tried to imitate it. What I found works best is to lay the fresh, raw spears uncovered in a single layer on a cookie sheet, shove it into the freezer for a couple of hours, and then put the hard-frozen spears into freezer bags. The next challenge is how long to microwave them--it isn't very long because they're cooked in about the same time as it takes for them to get hot.